Living Nightmare
by ThePhotogenicTaco
Summary: The Green Flu outbreak has left Pennsylvania in ruins, turning the people into aggressive, flesh eating monsters. Among the chaos, four unlikely survivors fight through the infection. Will a Vietnam veteran, a tough biker, an IT Analyst, and a young college student have what it takes to survive against all odds, or will they be left for dead like everyone else?
1. Escape To Mercy Hospital

Chapter 1: Escape to Mercy Hospital

"Hurry, get inside!" Zoey screeched, ponytail bouncing as she ran from the flesh-hungry horde. She could hear her group close behind, unloading magazine after magazine of ammo into the creatures. Some fell dead to the ground, while others tripped over rotting bodies but continued the chase. They made their way into the small hardware store, and the young girl spotted the saferoom almost immediately. They were about to enter when she waved a hand in the air, signalling that she wanted them to stop.

"What gives, Zoey? We've got a horde on our asses!" Francis snapped impatiently, guesturing to the large amounts of undead banging on the locked double doors and scratching at the windows. Just then, a zombie began crawling on the saferoom floor. It let out a low and throaty warning growl as it looked in their direction.

"We've got a hunter!" Before the creature had the opportunity to pounce, the whole group opened fire on it. The hooded creature let out a pained screech as it suddenly went limp, the gunshot wounds bleeding heavily and staining the concrete ground.

"Lets get this thing out of here before it stinks up the place." Francis suggested, grabbing the corpse by the arms. Bill placed his gun on the ground and grabbed hold of the legs, and together they carried the body out of the safehouse and tossed it away from the door. Walked back inside the room and Bill shut the door behind him, exhaling in relief, but more in exhaustion.

"So, what's the plan exactly?" Zoey asked the older man, sitting down in a small foldable chair.

"You heard that helicopter pilot, we go to Mercy Hospital and get evactuated!" Francis interjected.

"What if we get there too late?" Louis asked, stretching his sore muscles. Bill put a hand up and the group fell silent, waiting for his take on the situation.

"That's just a chance we're going to have to take. We get to Mercy Hospital and hope to God it's safe." Bill was the unofficial leader of the group because of his experience in surviving war, not to mention the years of tactical strategies experience he held over others.

"Well what the hell are we going to do if it's _not_ safe, Bill?" Francis argued, but the older man stayed silent. He wasn't about to lie and say that he had another idea, but he didn't want to worry them too much.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now," He started before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. "get ready and patch up if needed. We leave for the hospital in exactly five minutes."

**~xxx~**

The older male was the first one out, pushing the large metal door open and stepping carefully out into the dark alleyway. He led the small group of survivors through the alley, stopping when they got to an open back door. "Looks like this leads into the Burger Tank." Louis commented. He remembered coming to that same diner just a few days ago. It baffled him that everything had changed so quickly, without anyone even realizing.

"I hate diners." Francis huffed, taking the lead and walking slowly through the kitchen area. Zoey and Bill rolled their eyes at his comment but neither of them uttered a word. Louis was deep in thought and hadn't noticed the zombie that was running toward him until Zoey pulled the trigger of her pistol. He yelped and turn around, seeing the blood soaking the diner's white and red tile.

"Thanks." he said, a bit embarassed. They walked through the door of the silent diner and into a steady rainstorm. All was quiet aside from the few infected that had noticed the survivors, though they were taken out with a few quick gunshots. "Well where do we go now?" Zoey inquired, seeing nowhere else they could go.

"How about that?" Louis asked, pointing at a construction lift that was sitting at the far corner of the parking lot.

"That'll work, come on!" Bill took the lead again. The four survivors ran across the large parking lot and past the rotting corpses that laid there. The old war veteran was the first to climb onto the lift. Once everyone was on the lift he clicked the button on the control panel, silently praying that it hadn't been ruined during the rain. The whole thing shook slightly, before slowly ascending into the air.

They had climbed onto the roof when they heard it: the collective moans and screams of infected. The horrid sound was drawing closer and closer with each passing minute. "Shit, the sound of the lift must have drawn some attention." Louis cursed, grabbing the AK47 that was strapped to his back. Zoey looked down and saw a crowd of the infected standing right below them, some even climbing up the lift to the roof they were standing on. They immediately opened fire on the undead, the sound of gunshots filling the night air.

The screams had drowned out the coughing and weezing of a smoker, letting it go undetected by the small group. The special infected took advantage of the survivors' vulnerability, wrapping his long tongue around Zoey's throat, pulling her slowly toward him while attempting to choke the life from her.

"Smoker's got Zoey!" Francis' voice boomed, following the long pink tongue until he found the owner. He took a few good shots before seeing the large explosion of smoke, and watched the creature's corpse fall from the roof. The young woman coughed and choked and she strained to catch her breath, climbing to her feet. "You good?" Louis asked her, and she just nodded. Once the horde was taken care of they immediately got moving again, making their way toward the open window of a second story building.

**~xxx~**

The survivors took turns climbing down the ladder of the open manhole and into the depths of the town's sewer system. "Yuck." Zoey commented, pulling the collar of her her white undershirt over her nose in a futile attempt to spare herself from the smell.

"I hate sewers." Francis mumbled. He wasn't paying attention to where he was walking, and stepped off the side path and ankle deep in sewage. "Shit. Oh this stinks!" He cursed loudly, which got the attention of a few infected lurking around.

"Francis quit your whining." Bill shot at the three or four zombies that had come running. Blood oozed out of the open wound and mixed into the sewer water as their bodies dropped. They started to make their way through the sewer system, all holding their breath and hoping to get back to the surface as soon as possible.

They wandered around the tunnels of the sewer for what seemed like hours, using only their small flashlight beams to see where they were going. "It's like a freaking maze down here." Louis complained, reloading his pistol for the third time. He had only had enough ammo for one more reload, and it looked like the others weren't doing any better. They needed to get to Mercy Hospital, and soon.

"I think that's our way out." Zoey stated, pointing her flashlight to a red ladder they hadn't seen before. The light coming from the open manhole gave the group of survivors some hope. "The hospital should be right above us." Louis announced to the group. He was about to ascend to the surface, but a spray of thick green vomit shot from around the corner and coated him and Francis.

"I can't see!" the African-American man cried, trying furiously to rub the bile from his eyes. He heard a loud '_Pop!'_ and through the bile saw an explosion of blood, bile and guts. The explosion and smell of boomer vomit had attracted a huge horde of infected. The walking corpses screeched as they came around every corner, closing in fast.

"There's no way we can fight them all!" The burly biker man bellowed as he finally regained his vision.

"Bill, what are we going to do?!" Zoey asked in a panic, pulling out her uzi and looking to the war veteran for an answer that would save them from certain death.

"Up the ladder, quickly!" he commanded, quickly making his way up the metal ladder. The others followed swiftly, their legs and arms carrying them up the ladder as fast as possible.

A zombie had grabbed a hold of Zoey's ankle, trying to pull the woman back down into a crowd of hungry flesh-eating mosters. She clung to the last rung of the ladder with one hand and with the other one shot it right between the eyes. Her leg was immediately freed from it's grasp and she pulled herself up onto the street. They had all hoped to find the hospital well fortified and safe, but what they found was horrifying.

**~xxx~**

The area was an absolutely bloody mess. The ground was stained with blood and bloodstained newspapers, bodies piled knee-high. Cars were flipped over and crashed into buildings, like utter chaos had broken out. There were no sign of any people, undead or otherwise. "Damnit.." Bill muttered under his breath, walking through blood puddles and toward the open doors of the hospital.

There was an ambulance parked near the doors of Mercy Hospital's emergency entrance, a bloody gourney tipped over near the lobby counter. "Looks like they were just bringing someone in when things went to shit. Things were thrown around, dried blood coating the white walls and tiled floors.

"Come on, into the saferoom." Francis said gruffly, making his way around the lobby desk and into the ER lobby's small breakroom. The others followed in defeat, piling into the safe room and and barracading the door behind them. Their survival plan had failed, meaning they needed to come up with another one as quick as possible.


	2. Dead Wrong

**A/N: Hey everyone I am **_**so **_**sorr about the delay with this story. I had a really bad case of writers block, so I couldn't quite think of anything. But i'm back now and hopefully it'll stay that way! Anyways, leave a review if you liked it!**

Living Nightmare Chapter 2: Dead Wrong

When the door to the saferoom opened and the survivors stepped out they were mortified at the sight. The hospital was in absolute ruins; rotting and half-eaten corpses littered the floor, as well as bloodsoaked papers and patient files. Louis and Zoey exchanged wide eyed glances, while Francis and Bill were seemingly unaffected by the sickening sight.

The Green Flu outbreak had only started about two weeks and some odd days prior, but the carnage was worse than they had expected. It didn't seem like anyone had any idea of just how serious this small flu was until it was too late, the hospita was no exeptionn . The hospital had originally started out as a safe haven of sorts, but now all possible help was gone. Everyone in Mercy Hospital: doctors, nurses, patients, even CEDA. They were all gone.

They started making their way down the hallway, carefully stepping over the dead bodies in their the end of the dimly lit hall was a door to the hospital stairs. The old Vietnam veteran led the group of survivors carefully up the stairs, stopping at the second level."Well, looks like we can't go this way." Louis said, looking at the collection of desks and boxes that were piled up on the stairs. It seemed to be an attempt to keep anyone or anything from climbing the stairs to the building's third level.

"The hospital is obviously not safe anymore," Zoey started to say, looking to the group with worried eyes. "so what are we going to do now?"

"Nothing. We're as good as dead so what does it matter?" Francis stated matter-of-factly, not bothering to turn and face the others.

"I think all we need is a new plan!" she argued back, narrowing her eyes at the biker. The two fought back and forth for a few minutes over what to do, leaving Bill and Louis to just stand there silently and watch them. After a few minutes, the veteran cleared his throat in an attempt to get their attention, though it wasn't very effective.

"Shut your mouths for a second!" he commanded firmly, just loud enough for them to hear it.

"We're gonna make our way to the roof. Maybe they're still doing evacuations from up there." he stated, taking another drag off of his lit cigarette. "Any complaints?" he asked, directing his question to Francis.

Bill expected an argument from the younger man, but instead he cracked his neck and made his way silently ahead of the group. There was an eerie silence that fell on the hospital after that, aside from the chorus of groans from the infected that wandered Mercy Hospital's dim hallways.

They continued to wander the second floor hallways of the hospital in search of the staircase, passing by the administration desk on the way. Louis briefly glanced over at the desk and saw the receptionist slumped over a pile of bloody documents. He could feel the bile rising in his throat as he observed the sight, but did his best to swallow it down.

Realizing that his group was already on the third floor and were probably wondering what was taking so long, the man took a deep breath and made his way toward the hospital staircase to his right.

Before he got the chance to move any further, he heard the farmiliar growling of a Tank coming from down one of the second floor corridors. However, what stopped him in his tracks were the gunshots. The sounds were coming from the second floor and his group was wandering the third, so he knew it couldn't have been them.

_Is there someone else alive!?_ the young analyst asked himself. The sounds came closer and Louis gripped the railing to steady himself as the ground shook harder. He reloaded his weapon and prepared himself for what was coming. Before he had the chance to open fire he saw a figure fly past him.

From where he was standing he could only make out that the stranger was female. Her long hair pulled back in a messy bun, though her bangs were loose and in her face. She hurried and tried to stand, but almost immediately fell to her knees again. Being thrown had done some damage to her, though it was only a few feet.

He was just about to leave his hiding spot to help the young girl, but the Tank that had been chasing her came barreling around the corner. Louis saw that the large special infected was a bit slower than the others his group had encountered before. It was obvious that the woman had done some damage with her weapon, but it didn't seem to be enough.

The monster let out a loud yell and brought it's fists up into the air, fully prepared to crush the survivor. Its strength was terrifying, the special infected's upper body strength was enough to crush someone beyond recognition.

Before he had the opportunity to help the girl, the Tank brought his fists down onto her. Louis pressed himself closer to the wall and watched the horrifying sight. The special infected's large form obstructed his view, keeping his from seeing most of what was happening.

He saw the crimson liquid pooling on the hospital's white tile floor around him, and he began to panic. Before he could make up his mind on what to do, he heard another voice. "Maria, no!" the female voice cried.

Her screaming was almost drowned out by the sudden sound of frantic gunfire. The special infected stumbled back a bit, turning it's attention to the dead girl's friend. The blonde girl didn't let up, though. She continued to fire her weapon at the monster, emptying clip after clip into it. After her third clip the girl realized that she was out of bullets.

He knew he needed to help her. If he so much as hesitated, she would meet the same fate as her friend. He wasn't going to just stand by and watch someone else die. Louis held his gun in his hand, his finger on the trigger as he stood up. Taking a deep breath, he came out from his hiding spot and began firing his weapon at the Tank.

The dark-skinned survivor emptied a few clips into the Special Infected until he finally brought it down. They both watched as the Tank fell, causing the ground to shake a bit under their feet. It was silent for a few moments; Louis just stood and watched as the blonde girl stared at the corpse that laid at her feet.

He waited a few minutes before opening his mouth to speak. "Are you okay?" was all he managed to say. She didn't reply, however. "I'm Louis." he introduced himself, shifting his weight from one foot to the other awkwardly.

"Miranda." she spoke quietly, still not bothering to look up at him.

"Are you with anyone else, Miranda?"

"Yeah, she went ahead to the roof." she replied, finally directing her blue-eyed gaze at the stranger. She seemed to be worried about the friend, and Louis could sense that.

"My group went ahead, too. Maybe they met up with your friend. We should go see, right?" the girl agreed to accompany him, and the two survivors set off in search of the group.

"Where is he?" Zoey asked, leaning against the elevator doors. The group hadn't been waiting for the IT Analyst for long, though she couldn't help but get worried.

"No clue, maybe he died." Francis shrugged indifferently, and the brunette girl let out an annoyed sigh.

"Francis, would you do us all a favor and shut up?" she was sick of hearing him run his mouth. The two bickered back and forth, Bill took another puff of his cigarette and told both of them to knock it off, before reloading his gun and walking over to the elevator door.

He decided that they couldn't wait for Louis any longer. He was just about to press the red button and call the elevator when the dark-skinned man came running down the hall with Miranda in tow.

"Took you long enough." Francis muttered, still leaning against the wall.

"We ran into some trouble, sorry for keeping you waiting." he commented, before guesturing toward the blonde girl. "This is Miranda, she-"

"I'm looking for someone, her name is Ace. She was headed to the roof. Have you seen her?" she interrupted, asking the rest of the group. Everyone shook their heads, and her face fell instantly.

When Zoey saw how upset she was, she walked over to the girl and put a hand on her shoulder. Without a word, the blonde shrugged her off and walked over to the elevator, pressing the red arrow button. She was determined to find her friend, and nothing was going to stop her.


	3. Left Behind

Zombies poured in from all sides; they began rushing down the hallways and busting through the walls on either side of the group. "What do we do?" Zoey asked, panic rising in her body. Bill put out his half-used cigarette and dropped it back into his coat pocket, reloading his gun.

"Francis and I will take the ones coming down the halls. Zoey and Louis, you guys get the ones coming down the hall." he instructed, shooting at some of the zombies coming through the wall to his left. The sounds of gunshots echoed through the empty hosptial as the survivors shot the incoming infected.

The staggering amount of zombies caught the group off guard, but luckily they managed to work under the pressure. They took down the oncoming infected and had little trouble with it, until a few Special Infected showed up.

Zoey let out a surprised yell when she felt the warm, wet tongue of a Smoker wrap around her body. She called out for help as she started being dragged away from the group and through a horde of zombies.

"I hate zombies!" Francis complained, turning to run after the girl. he shot his way through the horde of zombies until he spotted the Special Infected that was holding her captive. Raising his shotgun to the creature's face, he pulled the trigger without a moment's hesitation.

The zombie exploded into a puff of green smoke, causing the two survivors to cough and gag. Francis helped Zoey up and they made their way back to the elevator, where the rest of their group had their hands full.

Miranda heard what sounded like a Hunter lurking to her right, the warning growl just loud enough for her to hear. She turned her blue-eyed gaze to where the growl was coming from and sure enough, there it was.

The hooded infected was crawling toward her, the tattered blue hood hiding it's hunger-filled eyes. It hadn't realized that it'd been detected yet, so the blonde girl took the opportunity and shot it right betweet the eyes with her pistol, killing it almost instantly.

They heard the collective screams of another oncoming horde, and looked at each other with worried expressions. They had a hard time surviving the first wave, so how did they have any chance surviving a _second _one.

Cocking their weapons as they watched the horde rush down the hallway toward them, they prepared to fight. Miranda was startled when she heard a _ding_ behind her, and turned around to see the steel elevator doors open.

"The elevator's here! Hurry!" she called as loud as she could to the group, trying not to be drowned out by the chorus of infected. The other survivors heard her loud and clear, all of them piling into the elevator. The blonde pressed the button over and over again as she nervously watched the horde get closer. The doors closed, creating a strong barrier between the humans and the infected.

Once they had gotten out of the elevator and through the floor that was being completely rebuilt, the group of survivors made it to the roof. When they got up to the roof of the hospital, they felt rain droplets on them. "I hate rain..." Francis complained, wiping the water droplets from his facial hair.

"Francis I swear-" Zoey started to warn, but Bill signaled for them both to be quiet. He could hear what sounded like someone speaking over a radio, and immediately started following the sound. They walked around on the roof until they found the source of the sound.

Inside a small room on the roof, they found a radio set up next to an ammo stockpile and a small assortment of guns. The group of survivors looked to one another, unsure of what they should do.

"Do you think they can help us?" Miranda asked, looking to the older male. She had pegged him as the leader of the survivor group, so she figured he'd be making the decisions.

"It's a chance we're going to have to take. We can't afford not to." he replied, then turned to Louis, who was closest to the radio. The dark-skinned man picked up the small wired microphone and held it to his lips, taking a deep breath.

"Yes, hello?" Louis spoke into the microphone, hearing a barely inaudible gasp from the other person. He instructed them to get new weapons and prepare for fighting off the hordes that might come, and to call him when they're ready so he could pick them up in his news chopper.

"Alright, you heard the man. Gather supplies and anything that might help us." the old war veteran said, putting in a new clip of ammo. "When we're all ready, i'll call-" he stopped himself mid-sentence when he heard a banging sound.

They froze and looked to the small broom-closet of the room, where the noise had come from. Francis grabbed his shotgun and was the first to make his way to the door. The other survivors followed cautiously, standing behind the man with their weapons pointed at the door.

The biker grabbed the doorknob with his gloved hand and pulled it open without a moment's hesitation. He was met with a shotgun pointed at his face, catching him a bit off guard. They had all expected a zombie, but instead there was a girl trapped inside.

"Gonna shoot me, tough guy?" Miranda jumped when she heard the voice, instantly dropping her weapon. She pushed past the others and made her way to the open door, looking down on the girl.

"Ace?"

"What took you so long, Miranda? I've been in here way too long." she complained, lowering her shotgun and walking out of the closet.

"Why were you even in there?"

"There were a bunch of zombies up here when I got here. I knew it was stupid to try and take them, so I snuck past and tried waiting them out in the closet." she explained, then looked around for a moment at the group. "Hey, where's Maria?" she asked, not seeing their missing group member among the others.

"Tank got her. It was bad..." she explained quietly, looking down. Ace paused for a second before kicking one of the metal vents on the roof out of anger. "Damnit!" she cursed, walking away from the rest of the group and to the ammo stash.

"Is she gonna be alright?" Louis asked, and the blonde sighed.

"It's best to give her space, let her blow off some steam. She'll be alright." she assured him with a forced smile. The group quietly prepared for the worst that could happen, working on a strategy for getting through pick up.

"Alright, i'm on my way. ETA is about 15 minutes. Just try and hang in there. News Chopper 5 out." the transmission ended and Bill put the microphone down.

They waited around for a few minutes, not having much zombie activity at first. Suddenly, a farmiliar chorus of groans and screams echoed through the air, signalling that everyone should get ready.

"So much for relaxing." Ace commented, cocking her shotgun and stuffing shells in her jacket pocket. Miranda opened the door and made her way to the top of the small building, where she saw a large minigun turret sitting in place.

"Oh man, this is so cool!" she exclaimed

"I'll cover you guys from up here!" she called down, then turned to look behind her. "Yeah, i've got you. Don't worry." Ace assured her friend, standing with her back to her.

Bill and Francis were on the front lines while Louis and Zoey stood back a bit and covered their flanks. A group of about a hundred zombies came rushing headfirst toward the group, the staggering number catching Louis and Zoey off guard.

They heard the minigun fire and watched as the horde was trimmed down significantly, less than half of them managed to stay alive. In her assualt she'd managed to shoot down a Boomer that'd set it's sights on the group below, watching as it rained blood and guts down on the corpses.

Miranda let go of her minigun with a yelp, the metal burning the palms of her hand. She had overheated the machine, meaning she would have to wait for it to cool down. "Hey, little help here?" she turned to see Ace struggling to fight off a zombie that'd pinned her to the ground.

The blonde pulled out her pistol and kicked it off of her friend, watching it smack a wall and fall to the ground. She grabbed it by the front of it's shirt to keep it upright, and shot it in the forehead. Helping her friend back to her feet, they found that more and more zombies were coming up to them.

The two girls were a bit overwhelmed on the top of the building, cornered by swarms of stray zombies that'd gotten past the others. Ace looked to the blue-eyed girl with a smirk, reloading her shotgun and emptying her shells into the zombies, the spread effect of the weapon doing even more damage.

While all of this was going on, Louis heard their rescuer speak gruffly over the radio. "Well, Mercy Hospital, looks like you're going to be my final run. News Chopper 5 out." he didn't know how he felt about that statement, but he had a feeling it wasn't anything good.

Suddenly, the ground started to shake violently, getting worse by the second. "Is that-" Zoey started to ask, when Louis finished her sentence for her. "Tank!" as if on cue, the large muscular infected let out a loud battle cry, but no one had seen him yet. He was close, very close.

Miranda turned to her friend, and almost shrieked when she saw the Tank climbing up behind her. "Ace, look out!" before the black-haired girl had the chance to get out of the way, the Special Infected swung its meaty arm and sent her flying off the small building. She landed on the metal ramp about 10 feet away, and her pained screamed echoed through the air.

She grabbed her leg and winced as it throbbed painfully, looking down to inspect what was causing her so much pain. She was surprised to find that her leg had been impaled by a broken metal pipe that was sticking up on the ramp.

She knew she was in serious trouble, however, she refused to call for help. Sitting up on her elbows, she began lifting herself off the ground. She cursed through the pain in her leg, slowly sliding it off of the metal pole. Once she was free, she tried to walk back to the group, who had just managed to bring down the Tank.

However, she wasn't so lucky. She fell almost immediately to the ground, her brows furrowing as another wave of pain ran from her leg and to the rest of her body. She heard her friend calling for her, watching as the blonde climbed the ladder to get to her.

"The helictopter's here!" Bill called, putting out his cigarette and breaking into a run as he made his way to the heliport.

The group followed, but Louis and Miranda broke away and ran over to Ace, who was still on the ground. "Is she gonna make it? We gotta get to the helicopter!" Louis exlaimed, a little panic in his voice as he glanced at the heliport where all of his team were starting to board.

"Come on Ace, get up. I've got you." the black-haired girl struggled to get to her feet, but Miranda supported her injured leg enough for her to stay upright. The blonde coached her to keep moving, helping her to walk slowly up the ramp and toward the helicopter. After being told multiple times to board the helicopter, Louis did so and sat with his team.

"We can't wait any longer. We're taking off!" the pilot exclaimed, ignoring the survivors' protests. He closed the doors and guided the helicopter upwards, flying it around the building and away from the hospital. Bill looked down at the hospital roof, seeing the two young girls standing there and staring at the aircraft as it flew away.


End file.
